Women Archaeologists

Zelia Nuttall was an archaeologist from California. Archaeologists are scientists who study objects that people left behind. They learn about life long ago.

Nuttall was born in 1857. Her mother was from Mexico. She wanted to learn about her mother’s home country. She explored old places there. She studied clay heads that native people made long ago. She learned about the native people’s lives.

Photo Credit: (l)The History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo, (r)Nuttall, Zelia. “The Terracotta Heads of Teotihuacan.” The American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts, vol 2, p179. April 1886.

Gertrude Caton-Thompson was an English archaeologist. She was born in London in 1889. She made a trip to Egypt with her mother. This made her want to be an archaeologist. She studied old places in Egypt. She learned about life there long ago.

Photo Credit: Royal Geographical Society/Getty Images

Paulette Steeves is an Indigenous archaeologist. She studies old Native American sites. She looks for clues that tell how long ago people came to North America and South America. Many experts think they came here from Asia. Steeves thinks they first came here about 100,000 years ago. She wrote a book about what she learned from her work.

What Do You Think? If you were an archaeologist, which part of the world would you like to explore?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Steven Holen and Dr. Paulette Steeves